I Somehow Let Myself Collect Over Two Dozen Cars And Motorcycles, It’s Time To Let Some Go

It’s hard to pass up on a good deal. Since 2016, I’ve been on a bit of a buying spree, buying anything I found even mildly interesting so long as it was cheap enough. By my count, I’ve owned a total of about 60 vehicles since then, with most of them eventually getting sold as I find the next thing to get excited about. In recent years, I’ve been having more vehicles come in than leave and I think it’s time to change that. I’m thinning my two dozen-vehicle herd, starting with the projects I just know I’m never going to finish.

Until recently, I could not give an immediate answer to the simple question “how many vehicles do you own?” Seriously, I have a notepad file stored on my phone because it’s easier to whip that out than recall everything by hand. Admittedly, a lot of my vehicles are duplicates, such as my five Smart Fortwos. For the longest time, I felt I was a bit off-kilter by owning multiple of the same car. Then, I learned my numbers aren’t even that high compared to some others. I recently learned of a person with seven Smart Fortwos. Then there’s Valeria Giordano and her eight BMW Z3 Coupes plus Jessieleigh Freeman and her 17 Saturns. Yeah, you read that right. At least Smarts are half-size, so I can hide them in all sorts of nooks and crannies.

This weekend, I added my first American classic to my fleet. I’m excited to get a 1948 Plymouth Special Deluxe running again, but it’s not entering the fleet without other vehicles leaving, and I’m selling off a handful.

Too Far, Too Many

Some readers have expressed concern for my mental health and I thank all of you for the care. I feel like compassion is something sorely missing from much of the world today, so again, thank you.

I’m happy to say that I don’t think I’ve been better off than I am right now. I get to go on all of these awesome adventures around America and soon, I’m going to expand them to the global stage. I have an awesome career, awesome colleagues, a lovely wife, and a setlist of my favorite vehicles right within reach.

However, I think I found my limit.

I think I started discovering this around the time when I sold that Volkswagen Passat TDI wagon that broke down on the poor buyer. Usually, I want to replace a vehicle immediately, but I didn’t want to after selling the Passat. In fact, I felt relief.

I think part of it is the fact that I’m drawn to inherently unreliable cars. I then buy those unreliable cars at the bottom of their depreciation curves after they’ve been used up by 18 or more owners. I also get caught in the heat of the moment and sometimes make bad purchasing decisions. For example, that Passat was a rust bucket with limo tint on the windshield, questionable tuning, and somehow the manual transmission swap was already worn out. But it was the “holy grail” so I put on rosy shades and paid too much for it.

This has happened with more than one purchase. Back in 2022, I got a tad sloshed at a pool party and decided to give a guy $5,000 for a 1985 U-Haul CT13. I then got there and realized that oh god, I made a horrible mistake. The seller didn’t mislead me or anything. I just saw the “holy grail” and bought it first and thought later.

No matter the reason, I’ve ended up taking on projects that I either do not have the time or the skills to complete. As you’re seeing with Handsome Devil/Hollywood David Tracy, we spend a lot of time creating the content you love and the rest of that finite time is left to either spin wrenches or live a life outside of cars. I’m sure as you’ve seen here, it’s hard to find a good balance. A day spent working on a broken camper is a day you didn’t spend going on a date. A day you spend going on a date is time that you could have spent working on your broken car. I can’t pull both levers at the same time.

David and I have been employing mechanics to do jobs we could have done ourselves. The way I see it, time and money are also finite resources and levers you can pull. When I was younger I didn’t have much money, so wrenching was a necessity. Now, I can pay someone else to get their hands dirty while I spend more time with my wife or more time having fun with other vehicles. Nowadays I wrench for the fun of it rather than for survival.

All of this has left me in an interesting spot. I have projects I know I will never complete. Then there are the vehicles that are causing more headaches than they’re worth. Finally, we have vehicles I purchased for specific reasons and just never use. So, it’s time to let some things go.

1985 U-Haul CT13

This was the holy grail of fiberglass campers for me. We had big plans for this camper. It was supposed to be the launch vehicle for an Autopian RV subsite. That site may still happen one day, but the camper project stalled out. Let’s see, the U-Haul camper needed a fiberglass hole patched, two fiberglass cracks fixed, major frame rust fixed, a new jack installed, and the entire electrical system rewired.

The original plan was to turn the camper into a rolling Autopian billboard of sorts. David and I also considered doing a wrench-a-thon to bring the U-Haul up to spec and to revive Jason’s very dead RV. This didn’t happen. Then my poor trailer got into worse shape. The swamp cooler on the roof disintegrated and the floor started getting soft. So, I was basically looking at a total restoration at that point.

I think it’s time I realized that I’m never going to give that camper the care it deserves. So, I listed it for sale. I had it sold two hours later and honestly, I could not have found a better buyer. The buyer was the guy who lived directly across the street from where I stored the U-Haul. Apparently, he’s owned a Casita but considered the U-Haul to be the best vintage fiberglass trailer out there. He’s right.

Anyway, he’s been watching over my camper for two years, hoping one day I’d sell. The buyer told me that neighborhood kids often loved to break into the trailer and they liked hanging out in it. Sadly, the kids never closed the door when they got done, so it rained and snowed inside of my trailer. That explained the weird footprints, stains, and water damage. It also explains why I often found my old school bus with its windows open and the emergency door open. Those same kids kept breaking into my bus, too.

So, not only do I get closure for something that has confused me for a while, but the trailer is going to someone who is legitimately stoked for it. I also got $2,500 out of the deal. That’s a win to me!

2001 Buell Blast

I’m a huge fan of Erik Buell’s failed beginner bike experiment. The Buell Blast is a lovely weirdo powered by half of a Harley-Davidson Sportster engine and has legitimately good ideas baked into its design.

A 2000 Blast was one of my first motorcycles and I loved it so much. So, last year, I bought another as a winter beater. I loved how my new-to-me Blast had 1,600 original miles, its original 23-year-old tires, and came in a poppin’ red color.

However, I’ve been bothered by how it doesn’t fit me like it used to. I’m not sure what happened to my body over the past six years, but the Blast used to fit me well and now it doesn’t. The pegs feel all wrong, as do the bars and the seat. All of that can be fixed, but what can’t be is the fact that I just never want to ride my Blast. It seems as if I like the idea of the Buell Blast more than actually riding it. In fact, I rode my 2023 Zero DSR/X press bike through the winter and the Blast never even left the garage.

As luck would have it, Sheryl does want a motorcycle, so I’m giving it to her.

2001 BMW 525iT

Speaking of Sheryl, we’re also getting rid of the BMW E39 wagon that we bought from the Bishop. This car has been the subject of a number of articles, but none of them are the cause of it getting listed for sale.

The running costs did this car in. Last year, Sheryl loaned her Toyota Prius to a friend in need. There’s a long story there, but the friend refused any of my cars on account of them either being rusty, unreliable, German, small, diesel, or all of the above. Sheryl has the biggest heart of anyone I know, but I had a feeling the whole Prius deal was going to come crashing down, and it did. The under-insured friend wrecked the car in November. Since Sheryl was still the registered owner of the vehicle, her insurance took a huge hit at renewal time last month.

How bad? Her rates doubled per vehicle, and that’s with the cheapest insurer she could find. The BMW was already pricy for her to insure, but now it has become as expensive as a car payment. Yeah, paying what’s more or less a car payment on a $1,500 BMW doesn’t make sense to us, either. So Sheryl’s passing it on with a heavy heart.

2005 Genuine Stella

The Genuine Scooter Company of Chicago used to slap its name on license-built Vespa scooters from LML of India. The Stella was a metal 150cc two-stroke beast with a manual transmission and was available in awesome bright colors.

These scooters are great when they work. The problem is that the Stella is essentially an Italian scooter modified for India and then shipped to America. Stellas are known for electrical issues and for eventually lunching their engines. Mine has a working engine, but it has always suffered from electrical issues.

Funny enough, I’ve stricken the Stella from my vehicle list, but I haven’t actually sold it. Every prospective buyer has flaked on me. So, I gave it to Sheryl to teach her how to wrench on a two-wheeler. She learned a lot and the scooter was instrumental in that, but not even she wants to keep it. Ouch!

I don’t even know what I want for this. A thousand bucks? Trade for an old Honda Gold Wing?

2012 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI

Back in 2020, I realized that there was a cooler wagon out there than the Passat TDI wagon. The Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI is faster, has a far nicer interior, and doesn’t have an automatic transmission known for mimicking the infamous GM 4L60E. In 2020, I bought a Jetta SportWagen TDI with a DSG, then found one with a six-speed manual in 2022.

I don’t want two of these, so I’ve decided to sell the DSG. Unfortunately, this vehicle is caught in a weird legal limbo that I can’t really talk about at the moment. I can’t sell it right now, so it’s just sitting in the garage at my parents’ house. I’ve been maintaining it even though I don’t want it anymore. It runs like a fine watch, which helps me in diagnosing problems with my slightly older six-speed SportWagen.

A part of me also wants to sell the Nova Bus RTS-06 because really, I have no business trying to run a gosh-darned transit bus and I’m lucky something expensive hasn’t failed on me. However, one of my dreams is to one day have a museum like the Crazy ’80s Car Museum with the RTS as a centerpiece, so I’m holding out a little longer for that. On one hand, I know how hard it is to find an unmolested and running RTS. On the other hand, I could save a lot of money by getting rid of it. I think I’ll just play it by ear.

That’s all that’s on the chopping block for now. At the very least, selling all of these vehicles I’m certain I want to get rid of would reduce my personal vehicle count by four. The Plymouth puts me back up one for an overall loss of three. The camper is gone and the Buell is already transferred to Sheryl, so now it’s time to rid myself of the Stella and the Jetta. Sheryl will lose a car, but gain a motorcycle, which will be pretty cool.

Really, I’m just finding myself prioritizing my collection. I want to keep special vehicles like the Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI, the Honda Beat, the Suzuki Every, and my Smarts. Moving forward, I’m adhering to a personal rule that I cannot add a car unless I sell a car first. I also want to be a bit more selective. By that, I mean no more buying projects I know I’m not going to make any real progress on. The U-Haul was a mistake from the jump, made worse by kids breaking into it.

Either way, getting rid of these problem vehicles has already made me feel a bit more relaxed, so clearly it works. If you take anything away from this story, it’s that I want you to know that it’s okay to let go of things, even things you think are holy grails. As it turns out, some of my holy grails aren’t the grails I thought they were.